Deprecating port list

[Rainer Müller]

Andre Stechert wrote:
> In some other CLI's (e.g., mysql, IOS), the word "show" is used to
> communicate what is being done here.
> 
> e.g.,
> 
>    port show outdated
>    port show installed
>    port show maintainer:nomaintainer

As I said before, if we are going to use a single command, I would
expect consistent output. But for installed I would like to see
the version which is installed, for outdated I would like to see the new
and old version.

'port outdated' and 'port installed' have a different output format. For
this functionality it is not enough to expand the pseudo-port only.

How would you combine that into a single 'show' command?

> There also seems to be a case of noun vs. adjective vs. verb in the
> syntax.  E.g., in the output of "port help" there are things called
> "actions" and then later called "commands".  Actions strongly implies
> they should be verbs, but in practice they are not always verbs.

Internally they are called "actions", but I think documentation and
users began to use the term "commands".

> Mostly like this:
> 
>    port build
>    port configure
>    port fetch
>    ...
> 
> but some usage has adjectives:
> 
>    port outdated
>    port installed
>    (interestingly not for all pseudo-portnames, e.g., you can't "port
> inactive" which would be a useful predecessor to "port uninstall
> inactive".  Although I now know you can "port echo inactive"!)

As explained above, there is a special output format for outdated and
installed which is not necessary for any other set of ports.

> and some nouns:
> 
>    port info
>    port location
>    port version
> 
> A more radical suggestion would be to require something like "echo" or
> "show" in front of all non-verb targets.

And you forgot:
cat, cd, contents, dependents, deps, dir, distfiles, file,
notes (on trunk), platform, url, usage, variants, work

There are lots of actions/commands which are not a verb. It would not
make sense to require a verb before them. What should it be? 'port do'?

Rainer